RebelDad

Posted on 15. Nov, 2003 by Brian Reid in General

Friday night … as good a time as any for deep thoughts about paternity leave. Following Wednesday’s post on the fierce presidental politics of paid leave, I would be remiss in not flagging this brilliant piece from the Seattle Times on paternity leave. As some of you have figured out, I’m growing sick of the dads-are-caring-for-kids-more stories, and this one takes on the subject — and takes it on well — through the lens of paternity leave.

Some nice stats from a 2000 Oxygen/Markle poll: “ … two-thirds of men (and nearly three-quarters of women) said new dads should take more than two weeks off after the birth or adoption of a child …” … “three-quarters of men said loss of income, not lack of interest, was the main reason dads didn’t take paternity leave …”

That brings me to the feedback from Wednesday’s post. In the comments, Hogan Hilling shocks me by saying he’s opposed to paid leave. He has five reasons (I’m paraphrasing, he was more eloquent): 1) It’ll hurt the businesses (or taxpayers) who pick up the tab. 2) A minority will abuse it by not taking care of the kids. 3) It ain’t the money that keeps dads from taking leave, it’s the loss of some measure of job security. 4) Family should be the priority, not money and 5) You can’t put a price on wanting to spend time with you kids.

I can’t say I agree. I answered Hogan point-for-point in the comments section. For the sake of brevity, I’ll repeat here only my personal bias toward paid leave: if not for paid leave (I took three months, fully paid), I wouldn’t have taken nearly the amount of leave I did. And if I hadn’t taken all that leave, it’s unlikely I would have become an at-home dad. It’s not a question of my valuing money over spending time with my family. At the time of my first child’s birth, my wife and I could not have afforded me to stay home, unpaid, no matter how much I loved the baby. Paid leave took away a certain amount of financial pressure. It also hooked me on parenting as a vocation. I didn’t start the leave thinking I would end up quitting my job. But as the months progressed, swapping fathercare for daycare seemed like a more and more uncomfortable choice. In short, I owe my current status to my paid leave.